


LENS

by suggcest



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Blowjobs, Breathplay, Character Study, First Time, Frottage, M/M, handjobs, moving out fic, sex with OFC is in the past, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:36:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6802093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suggcest/pseuds/suggcest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe's unofficially supposed to help, but he's got other things to do the morning that Caspar moves out. He sits at his desk with his hair unwashed, wearing the grey t-shirt he found on Caspar's floor yesterday, and stares at his computer screen as footsteps go up and down the stairs, people calling to each other, directing. Caspar comes and hovers in Joe's door every so often, looking lost. </p><p>“You need anything?” Joe asks. </p><p>“Nah,” Caspar says. “They've—we've got it, yeah.”</p><p>He wanders off again. Joe thinks about closing his door, but he doesn't. </p><p>(Joe vlogs too much and leaving is complicated)</p>
            </blockquote>





	LENS

**Author's Note:**

> guess which bitch is back again fuckeRS
> 
> still mad about the lack of fic but more mad at my stupid ass for writing fucking 9k of sappy ass bullshit instead of just all porn. y'all better be happy i did this to myself. i said i wasnt sure when i'd be writin jaspar again and yet here i am. fuck this noise man. also guess who don't give a shit about accurate timelines? it's this bitch. does the timeline of this fic even at all relate to the actual timeline of them moving out and whatnot? no. do i care, no. it's all fictional and we're all dying anyway
> 
> if you want something completely different than the cutesy shit jaspar has been serving on a fuckin platter for the last couple days well here ya go
> 
> p.s. everything that happens sexually between these characters is consensual but the communication during is pretty shit! lets be real! so warning for a bit dub-con cause of that, dont be like these idiots

Joe's unofficially supposed to help, but he's got other things to do the morning that Caspar moves out. He sits at his desk with his hair unwashed, wearing the grey t-shirt he found on Caspar's floor yesterday, and stares at his computer screen as footsteps go up and down the stairs, people calling to each other, directing. Caspar comes and hovers in Joe's door every so often, looking lost.

“You need anything?” Joe asks.

“Nah,” Caspar says. “They've—we've got it, yeah.”

He wanders off again. Joe thinks about closing his door, but he doesn't. Yesterday's vlog is proving harder to edit than he'd thought, and Caspar's weird face is at least a distraction.

The moving people know what they're doing—it takes all of ten minutes maybe to get everything outside. Caspar puts his jacket on in the hallway, rustling loudly in Joe's peripheral vision. Joe doesn't look at him, busy squinting at the frozen image of himself on his computer screen—he's got his mouth open, mid-sentence, and Caspar's in the shot just behind him, out of focus. Joe's looking for the right spot to make a cut, and he can't find it. He knows objectively that vlogging is stupid, but whenever he's editing, it all seems too important to get rid of any of it.

Caspar leans on Joe's door frame for three minutes before he says anything this time.

“You coming?”

“I've got—” Joe waves at his computer screen. “Besides, you're coming back, right?”

He wishes he hadn't added that bit, but Caspar's just nodding, dragging a hand across his cheek. They've both been tired lately. There's been a lot of meetings.

“Yeah,” Caspar says. “At like, lunch.”

“Gotta get this vlog up,” Joe says.

“Yeah.”

“Cheers, mate,” Joe says, because Caspar won't leave, and he still hasn't noticed that Joe's wearing his shirt. What's the point of stealing things from people if they don't even care?

Caspar looks at him for another minute, his face set in that hangdog expression that makes it impossible to tell what he's thinking. Joe smiles; feels a bit sick. He really wants Caspar to leave.

“Go on then,” Joe says, putting on one of his many stupid voices. “Get outta here. Get!”

Caspar laughs. “Okay.”

He thunders up the steps, and Joe's smiling for real when he turns back to his computer. He slips his headphones on and lets the clip of his vlog run, watching as his onscreen self talks and talks and talks before accidentally backing up into Caspar. They laugh, loud in Joe's ears, and Caspar swings in close, his forehead butting up against the side of Joe's face.

“Sorry,” onscreen Joe is saying, and Caspar's overlapping with him, “sorry, sorry, mate, sorry.”

Joe pauses and takes his headphones off. He rewinds and plays back the moment when Caspar leans in, watching his mouth pull wide and his eyes close, watching his own face crumple up with laughter. It would make a good gif—would probably be all over tumblr in minutes, fangirls screaming about “jaspar” in their tags. It's one of those moments that was normal while it was happening, but when slowed down, played again and again, it looks—they're too close is all. Caspar looks too happy about it.

They play up the whole “jaspar” thing sometimes on camera, as a joke, and Joe likes that, likes having an excuse to make Caspar blush, likes poking fun at the fans in their own little way, but it's different when they weren't trying to act and yet the fans take it that way anyway. He doesn't know what to do with that.

“Caspar?” Joe yells.

He waits a minute, but there's nothing.

“Caspar?” Joe tries again, pushing away from his desk and heading out of his room. “Caspar, I just wanted to know if you think I should keep this thing in my vlog or cut it, it's—”

He stops at the top of the stairs. There's cardboard boxes on the desk where Caspar's computer used to sit, and Caspar's shoes are gone. Joe hadn't caught him in time—he's already left.

Cut it, Joe thinks. Just cut all of it out.

Caspar doesn't come back that day—decides to stay over at his new place and test out the bed. Joe sleeps in Caspar's shirt as punishment. It's like a fucking tent, and he can barely breathe.

****

Really, he should've kept it in the vlog.

They've had a lot of meetings lately. A lot. When Joe decided he wanted to move out, get an actual house, there was no question that Caspar had to get a place near him. Joe hadn't thought at first about what it meant to have a friendship become part of your brand, back when he and Caspar realized that anything they did together got twice the hits, but it's all he can think about these days.

“People are going to be upset,” they were told. “You have to soften the blow—emphasize how this doesn't change your friendship, and that you'll be working together even more.”

Things like Caspar so close with a smile like that would've been good for the brand.

****

Their audience won't know that they're moving out for another week, and they still have to film their videos explaining it. When Joe wakes up the day after Caspar left, he can hear banging upstairs, and he slouches up the steps to find Caspar leaning on the counter, half of his face hidden in his palm.

“How was the bed?”

Caspar looks up, and squints at Joe for a long moment.

“Was weird,” he grunts.

“Tired?”

“Yeah.”

He hasn't blinked since he turned to Joe, and his eyes are fixed lazily somewhere below Joe's neck. At first Joe thinks that Caspar just doesn't want to meet his eyes, and then he remembers, in a sudden flush of heat, that he's still in Caspar's shirt.

“Right,” he says. He laughs, pushing against the tightness in his chest. “You want this back? You left it behind earlier, I—”

“That's mine?” Caspar says.

Joe stops, one fist curled in the bottom of the shirt.

“Yeah,” he says. “Does it look like it fits me?”

“It makes you look like a hobbit,” Caspar says.

“Fuck off,” Joe says. He pulls the shirt off over his head and holds it out. Caspar blinks sluggishly at him, and it takes a long moment before his gaze tracks away from Joe's chest to the shirt in his hand. He smiles, dopey-looking.

“Remember when we did that couple clothes swap?” he says.

“Roommate,” Joe corrects.

“Yeah,” Caspar says. “You looked so tiny.”

“That's 'cause you're a fucking giant.”

“It was fun,” Caspar says. “Oli and his 'so this is a great look' thing—”

“Yeah, it was a good video,” Joe says. “The fans love it when we do stuff like that.”

“They just love you with your shirt off.”

Caspar's hair is sticking up all over the place, but he's fully dressed, wearing fresh clothes because he took most of his over to his new place yesterday. Joe's only in his boxers, the shirt crumpled up in his fist. He shivers; wishes he could put the shirt back on.

“Are you gonna take this?” he asks.

“You were wearing that yesterday,” Caspar says. “I don't want it 'till you've washed it.”

“Well that's bloody rude, isn't it,” Joe says theatrically. “I wore it when you hadn't washed it.”

Caspar laughs, a little uncomfortably. “What?”

Joe's sick of being so far away, sick of accidentally saying the wrong thing and leaving himself wide open. He crosses the room, shirt still held out.

“C'mon,” he says, and Caspar's straightening up, like he's going to back away. “Take it.” He grins—he needs to get back on ground he recognizes, needs a joke, and Caspar's always easy for one.

He was right; Caspar's laugh sounds like him again by the time Joe's on him. Joe stretches up and tries to rub the shirt across Caspar's face, pushing forward when Caspar fights back.

“Piss off, Joe,” Caspar's groaning, but he's got one hand hot at Joe's bare side and the other grabbing for his wrist, and they're both laughing now, grappling. Joe hooks a hand around Caspar's neck, squeezing. It's good, familiar. It's how things should be.

Somewhere in the space between that thought and the feeling of Caspar's body wedged awkwardly up against Joe's, it all goes a bit sad in his head. It's how things should be, but it's not going to be quite like this again, is it? He hadn't thought about that. He's been trying not to think about that.

Caspar bites his shoulder and Joe rips himself backwards, Caspar's teeth stinging a mark into his skin.

“Oh, you wanker!” Joe groans, chucking the shirt into Caspar's face. Caspar's still laughing like an idiot, unfazed. “Forget me pranking you too much, we should tell our viewers it's 'cause you've got a mouth on you like a bloody alligator!”

Caspar snaps his teeth together.

“Always biting me,” Joe mutters. “Weirdo.”

Something changes in Caspar's face, and Joe turns away, heading back towards the stairs.

“We've got a meeting later, remember, so you better get showered,” he called back over his shoulder. “You smell rank.”

“Is that why?” Caspar's voice sounds small.

“Why what?”

“You know.”

Joe stops, one foot on the top step. Their flat is huge—that's why they'd loved it, why they'd wanted it, so they could have enough room for two guys to live together without overlapping too much, and yet now Caspar seems too far away, his face unreadable.

“What?” says Joe. “You smelling bad?”

“Biting,” Caspar says. “Cause I—cause I'm weird sometimes.”

“Mate, I told you, I just want to own a house, that's all,” Joe says. “Don't you want to have your own space? Grow up? Have a proper girlfriend?”

Caspar's jaw clenches.

“So you're saying yeah, that is why,” he says. “I know it bugs you how people see us.”

“No,” Joe says. “No, I don't even know what you're on about.” He makes himself laugh; it sounds off. Their flat is too big, ceilings too high. Everything they say to each other here sounds strange. “You know you're one of my best mates.”

Caspar nods and drops his head, breaking their eye contact. Relief shudders through Joe, painful.

“You won't be anymore if you don't shower though,” he says.

“If that was true, you would've left years ago,” Caspar says, and it's clearly a joke, so Joe laughs, but it hurts a bit. I'm not leaving, he wants to say. Don't you get it, we're a package deal, we're a brand, I _can't_ leave.

“We'll get lunch on the way in, alright?” Joe says.

“Yeah, sure,” Caspar says. “Sorry.”

“It's cool,” says Joe. He has no idea what they just talked about. It's all gone fuzzy and distant in his head already, hidden behind a wall.

If he'd vlogged it, maybe it would've make sense.

****

Joe vlogs too much, he knows. Zoe commented on it once, on how weird she thought it was that Joe would have his camera out in any situation, even in moments she would've judged to be private. Of course Joe edits things out later, but when it comes to filming, he doesn't have that filter everyone else seems to have. Sometimes he thinks YouTube is the only thing in his life that makes sense anymore. If he watches his days back in video form, he can be sure that they happened. He knows that he went to an event and had a great time, that he lived in this flat and had a great time, that he gained all of these friends and had a great time with them.

He knows that once, he backed up into Caspar while talking and Caspar smiled and swung in close and pressed his forehead to Joe's face and they said “sorry” together.

****

The fans don't take the news that they're moving out very well.

Everywhere he looks there's posts about the “jaspar break up” and people getting upset. Joe had tried to make it all seem normal in their videos, even referring to them as being still roommates with two places, and it just wasn't enough for people.

“It's like they think they own us sometimes,” he says to Zoe, who'd called to talk about a collab they've been planning. “I mean, we're literally moving to places that are eight minutes away from each other, it's not like one of us is leaving the blimmin' country.”

“People get upset when they think something's one way and then it changes all of a sudden,” Zoe says. “I think they feel like they know us, so if we surprise them, it's a bit of betrayal.”

“Well, they can't have expected us to live together forever,” Joe grumbles.

“Joe,” Zoe says, very softly. “You know some of them did.”

It's too hot in the flat to be lying in bed, but Joe can't seem to get up. Oli's coming over later to hang out with Joe and Caspar, and Joe knows he should move and get ready, but the flat is too empty to be so hot, and his room is the only place where the temperature at least makes sense. It's a mess—he hasn't cleaned in ages.

“Some people don't know what they're on about,” Joe says.

Zoe hums distractedly. He misses her. Things were simpler when they were kids.

“You're only a year older than me and you've got a house,” he says. “Where you live with your boyfriend and your dog. I haven't even had a girlfriend in ages.”

“Everybody does things at their own pace, Joe,” Zoe says. “I'm proud of you that you're getting your own house, but you have to remember that there's no specific way you're supposed to do things, or like, specific time when you have to do things. You know I freaked out a little bit about moving in with Alfie.”

“Who wouldn't, with his snoring,” Joe says.

“Hey, he's not the worst boy I've lived with,” Zoe says, laughing.

“Excuse me!” Joe gasps dramatically. “How rude!”

Joe may not be good at emotions and stuff, but he knows she's worried about him. He wishes he could tell her that she shouldn't be, that everything is fine, but he doesn't want to find out if she'd be able to tell he was lying. Joe prides himself on being hard to read, and Zoe shouldn't be the exception to that just because she's his sister.

Zoe and Alfie look so happy sometimes it knocks him out a little. Joe was over at their place last fall for a fortnight to visit, and he woke up early enough that he caught them sleepily making breakfast together in the kitchen, Zoe with her head on Alfie's chest and one of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, the other arm stirring at porridge in a pot on the stove. Joe had watched for a minute and then ducked back around the corner, chest tight. They looked so complete together.

It was that visit that had done it. He'd headed back up to his room and let Nala wake him up with excited snuffling a couple hours later, once Alfie and Zoe had left for the meeting that had dragged them out of bed at seven in the first place. Joe drank cocoa in their living room and watched the sun on the floor, tracking all the little marks of shared living twisted up in sweaters thrown over the backs of sofas and video games stacked by the tv. Wasn't he supposed to have this by now? Wasn't he supposed to be an adult, with a girlfriend he could tuck close? How much longer could he play at being a kid, go out clubbing and pull girls just for one night, play fifa and fall asleep slumped against Caspar on the couch with pizza mouldering between them? Caspar was younger than him, but in many ways, he was more serious than Joe. He'd be good at this—at the house and the girlfriend and being a real fucking human being. He'd want to leave sooner or later. Sitting in Zoe's living room, Joe understood that. He still gets it now.

It's Joe's turn to grow up, like Zoe. Zoe needs to understand that. The fans need to understand that. Caspar needs to understand that.

“I'm really excited to move into my own place,” Joe says. “It's going to be great.”

“I'm sure it is,” says Zoe. “Just put up some videos with you two and pacify your audience. The fuss will blow over in no time, I'm sure. I mean, you guys are so close, it'll be obvious you both are fine with it.”

“Right,” says Joe.

There's a creak from upstairs—the front door opening, followed by the distinctive clomp of Caspar kicking off his shoes. One of them is probably going to get lodged under the lounge and he's going to be asking Joe to help him find them later. Caspar's a wreck without him, honestly. Joe gets out of bed and crosses to the doorway, intending to head up and say hi. He's about to tell Zoe he's got to go, when he hears a second set of footsteps and Oli's voice, twisted low with Caspar's. Joe pauses by his door, phone still pressed to his ear. Oli wasn't supposed to be coming until later. Joe can't hear what they're talking about exactly, but he catches his name, and his whole body flushes cold.

“Joe?” says Zoe. “You there? I can go if Caspar's over.”

“He's always over, it's his house too,” Joe says automatically.

Zoe goes quiet. Oli laughs upstairs, a loud bark. Caspar's laugh is softer, nothing like how he normally sounds. Joe closes his door and goes back to bed.

“We still haven't talked collab yet,” Joe says. “He can wait.”

****

Joe vlogs too much, he knows.

Once he hooked up with a girl who was a fan; he didn't know it until she'd already come once around his fingers, and was on her knees at the edge of his hotel bed. He doesn't fuck fans normally, but this girl was something else—crazy a little bit like he is.

“You should film me,” she had said, breath glowing hot against his bare knee. She was so pretty, even with her lipstick smudged from his mouth, all long blonde hair and dark eyes, and just looking at her made Joe harder than he'd been in ages. “Put it in a vlog.”

She sunk her teeth into his thigh and he jolted, swore. She smiled. “Think about all those people seeing you getting your cock sucked.”

“Is that what you're going to do?” Joe asked, pressing his thumb to corner of her mouth. “You want to blow me?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I want you to film it.”

“You're mental,” he told her, but he was already fumbling for his camera on the side table.

She took a long time with it, sealing her mouth around his cock and sucking slow and even. She didn't let him touch her head or her shoulders, but she stared up at the camera the whole time, eyes hot. She told him to film it well, and he did, focused in on the head of his cock resting on the flat of her tongue, the slide of her lips pulling and pushing up and down, her fingers twisting around the base of his cock and slipping under to squeeze at his balls. It was hard to keep the camera steady, but he did. Let her watch it back as he fucked her later that night, her on her stomach with the camera in her hands and him knocking shocked little moans out of her with every thrust.

He asked her for her phone number afterwards, too fuck-stupid not to, but he didn't have time to regret asking because she laughed and told him no.

“The footage is yours though,” she said. “Do what you want with it.”

Last fall, a couple days after he visited Zoe and first got the idea of buying a house, he staggered home with Caspar, both of them drunk after a night out, Caspar's face dug deep into the side of Joe's neck as he laughed. They were talking about one night stands, girls, stories. Joe's vlogging camera was on the table, and after they collapsed on the couch, Joe scrolled back through his saved videos and said, “Here, look at—look at this, man, watch this.”

Caspar was giggling when Joe turned it on. He stopped laughing pretty fast.

Their thighs were touching on the couch, shoulders pressed together and the back of Joe's hand resting on Caspar's leg where he was holding the camera down so they could both watch. The blowjob looked just as good as when it had first happened, maybe more so with the hot, sick thrill of Caspar seeing it too, him knowing how well she had sucked Joe off. Joe knew Caspar hadn't gotten laid like that in a while, so Joe was just giving him something, letting him share in the moment. He was warm all over with the benevolence of it, warm with friendship and whiskey.

“That's you?” Caspar asked after a bit, except it didn't sound like a question. He sounded drunker than he had before, voice thick with it.

“Yeah,” said Joe. “She was so good. Mouth like—like you can see, man.”

Caspar took a quick, shuddering breath, his body shifting on the lounge against Joe's. It was dark in the living room, barely anything visible beyond the glow of the camera screen. Joe realized they were breathing in time with each other, and tried to hold his breath, break it. He chanced a glance at Caspar's face; Caspar looked unfamiliar in the faint light, everything, from his hair to his eyes, to his mouth, dropped open slightly. Joe's eyes were pulled to it, the wet sheen of his lower lip.

Joe from the video moaned, long and low, and Caspar looked away from the display screen, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He was still flushed from the club, and a strange smile was twisting his mouth.

“This is kinda weird, isn't it,” he mumbled.

“Mate,” Joe laughed. “We've seen each others' dicks before.” He elbowed Caspar, not too gently, trying to get back the camaraderie of just moments before. “You were on my bed that one time.”

Caspar squirmed again, pushing back into the sofa. His mouth was still open, but he didn't reply.He swallowed, and Joe watched his neck moving.

“Just thought you'd appreciate her,” Joe said. He felt a little sick—whiskey swirling uneasily in his stomach. He'd gotten it wrong. He'd overstepped something and made it it strange and Caspar didn't want this.

He moved to put the camera away, and Caspar grabbed his wrist, thumb pressed right up against Joe's pulse.

“No, it's good,” he said quietly. “I wanna see.”

They watched through to the end together, heads tipped close. Caspar made a little sound when Joe came on the girl's face, a soft noise on the edge of an inhale, involuntary. Joe kept his eyes on the girl's face, sticky come and his own wet dick resting on her cheek. He was hard in his jeans, Caspar beside him, and he was shaking a little bit when the video cut out. Caspar's hand had stayed on his wrist the whole time, tight, keeping him steady.

They sat in silence for a minute, both still looking at the camera. Joe was intensely aware of the heat of Caspar's leg pressing against his.

“She was gagging for it, wasn't she?” Joe said, because that's what guys did when they did stuff like this, when they showed each other this stuff—they talked about the girl. They showed off.

“Jesus,” Caspar said. “Yeah, Joe, she was.” Joe wanted fiercely, suddenly, for him to be impressed, to be jealous that Joe could pull a girl like that. He couldn't tell if Caspar was though, couldn't tell if this was anything special compared to the kind of sex Caspar had had before. He'd heard Caspar through the walls on nights when he didn't know Joe was around, knew how girls sounded when they were under him.

Joe's cock was wedged sideways in his boxers, curving up along his hip, way too uncomfortable in his jeans, and it wasn't getting any softer, even with the video off. He imagined shifting his gaze just a few inches to look at Caspar's lap, see if he was hard; he imagined getting caught looking.

It sent a wave of nausea through him, and he pulled his hand out of Caspar's grip and stood up, fumbling with his camera to turn it off. Caspar just looked up at him, sagged drunken and open against the lounge.

“I'm going to bed,” Joe said.

“That's so far away,” Caspar said.

“I want to sleep.”

“You could stay here.”

Joe dropped the camera on the carpet, and swore. It seemed fine when he crouched and picked it up, but he set it back down on the coffee table instead of keeping it with him. He didn't trust himself with anything breakable right now.

“I'm going to bed,” he said.

Caspar said his name a couple times while he was walking away, but it didn't seem like he was calling Joe back, just like he was reminding himself. Joe. Joe, Joe.

Joe heard him shuffle his way onto his back, heard the drag of a zipper.

Joe went to bed and didn't jerk off and in the following day after they'd both emerged from their hangovers Caspar went pink and laughed at him and punched him in the arm and said, “you vlog too much,” and Joe said, “you wish a girl wanted you to film that,” and they laughed and played fifa with Joe sitting on the floor because he couldn't look at the couch properly and it was then.

It was then Joe knew he was moving.

****

Being in Caspar's flat feels very weird.

“Josh was over last night, so if it smells off that's not me,” Caspar says, pottering around his kitchen. Joe stands in the doorway and watches him, not sure whether he should take his shoes off or not. It's the fourth time he's been here, so he should know by now. He should be used to this.

“What are you making?” he asks.

“Tea.”

“Since when do you have tea?”

“Theo brought some over the other day.”

“Alright.”

Joe kicks off his shoes, and leaves them by the door. That's what they did when home meant their flat, so it should be fine here.

“Joe,” says Caspar, head in a cupboard. “Do you know where the sugar is?”

“Why would I know where the sugar is in your place?”

Caspar pulls his head out of the cupboard and blinks at Joe. “Right.”

Joe sighs. “It's probably behind the toaster. You always put things behind the toaster.”

Caspar looks behind the toaster, and makes a stupid noise of triumph as he pulls out a pot of sugar. Joe shrugs magnanimously.

“Are you psychic?” Caspar asks. He always gets excited over stupid things, and he's grinning now as if Joe just told him he's hit seven million subscribers. Usually it's infectious, but today Joe feels a little separate from it, from him. He's tired.

“I just know you,” Joe says.

Caspar nods, still smiling, and turns back to his tea. Joe leans against the door frame and watches him.

It's early afternoon, and the sunlight is soft and strong across Caspar's back, highlighting his shoulders, his bent neck, the edge of his spine through his shirt. Joe knows Caspar is tall, knows he's got muscle on him because both of them work hard for that, but normally it's just a fact of life, not something he really thinks about. He's thinking about it now, his gaze skipping from Caspar's hands fiddling with sugar, to the bones in his wrists, to his forearms, to his biceps pushing against his sleeves. Joe shivers, tucking his face into his own shoulder as if putting his view of Caspar sideways will change anything—Caspar looks good, not like he's been pining away. Joe misses him suddenly, desperately, drowning in the feeling for a dizzy second. He bites down on the crazy urge to say it. He doesn't know how he got here, the door frame the only thing holding him up anymore.

Caspar pulls a spoon out of a drawer and stirs his tea.

“You want some?” he asks.

“No,” says Joe. Caspar's shirt is grey, he realizes, grey and familiar. “Are you—”

He cuts himself off.

“What?” Caspar asks.

“Nothing,” Joe says, because what does it matter if Caspar's wearing the shirt Joe took from him a couple weeks ago? It doesn't matter. He pushes himself off of the door frame and goes into the living room, collapsing down on the lounge. It's nowhere near as comfy as their old one was.

“Are we filming today?” Caspar calls.

“We don't always need to film stuff to hang out,” Joe says.

“I know,” says Caspar. “But are we filming today?”

There's a set of pictures in frames under Caspar's tv, and Joe finds himself in the middle one—it's one of him, Caspar, and Oli from one of the crazy houses they stayed at last year. The others are Caspar with his family, except for one of Caspar and Josh—there aren't any with just Joe and Caspar. When Joe made the montage of “jaspar memories” for the video where they told their audience they weren't living together anymore, most of the clips had come from filming videos together on Joe's bed, turning on a smile and acting as stupid as fucking possible because that's what people wanted to see. That's what the camera gave them. It's all for the brand.

That's the thing about it that fucks him up if he thinks too hard about it. Because on one hand, if he vlogs something, he can be sure that it actually happened, but also how much of his friendships are just onscreen? How real is it if there's not a camera up?

“No,” says Joe. “I probably can't stay long anyway.”

Caspar appears in the doorway, a mug in his hand. The shirt is definitely the one Joe thought it was.

“Got a meeting or something?” Caspar asks.

Joe shrugs.

“Feels like I haven't seen you in ages,” Caspar says. “How's your house coming along?”

“It's almost ready,” Joe says.

“You planning on vlogging moving in?”

“I'm going to vlog moving out,” Joe says. “But no way, I'm not doing a house tour. They can ask all they want, it's not happening. People would just start getting weird over, like, how big it is and stuff.”

Caspar nods. “Yeah.”

“But we've worked for it, haven't we? I mean, they just don't know how hard it actually is.”

“Working with you has definitely been hard.”

“Oh shut it,” Joe says, and chucks a sofa pillow at Caspar's head. Caspar ducks, laughing, and almost spills some of his tea. The corners of his eyes have gone all crinkly, adorable.

“And hey, remember, what was the job you had before this?”

Joe groans, secretly thrilled, because Caspar taking the piss is definitely back on familiar ground.

“You know I was a roof thatcher,” he says.

“Really?” Caspar gasps, all fake enthusiasm. “You should tell girls that, I bet you'd get a lot of phone numbers.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, you can afford to take more girls back to your place, 'cause I won't be in the way,” Caspar says. “Ruining the mood and stuff.”

“As if you aren't gonna be having loads of girls round here,” Joe says.

“Dunno,” says Caspar, his grin fading. “Not really feeling it lately.”

Joe nods; doesn't know what to say. Caspar's still just standing in the doorway with his stupid tea, and Joe's neck hurts from looking up at him. Every time they slip back into being themselves, Joe goes and makes it all awkward again, and he doesn't know how to stop doing that, doesn't know where he messed this all up.

“Are you gonna sit down?” he asks.

“I had a dream the other night,” Caspar says.

“Fascinating.”

Caspar doesn't smile this time. He's just looking at Joe with that unreadable face, as strange as the night when he watched a video of Joe getting his cock sucked.

“We were back at our place,” Caspar goes on. “Except it was just me. And I knew you were gone and that I was the one who was stuck there until I could move into a new house. I was sitting on your bed too, like, with the cameras set up like we were about to film a video together, but you weren't there.” He squints down at his tea. “It sucked.”

“You've got a good imagination, Caspar,” Joe says. His fingertips feel numb.

“We should film something,” Caspar says. “Everyone loves a Jaspar Q&A.”

“I think I've gotta go,” says Joe. He checks his watch; can't even focus on the face of it. “Yeah, gotta go.”

“Joe,” says Caspar, but he lets Joe blow past him, lets him grab his shoes and jam them onto his feet.

“You'll invite me over when you finish your house, right?” Caspar asks. “Don't want you to be lonely.”

“Course I will,” Joe says, shooting him a smile. It feels plastic on his face. He fumbles for the door. “I'll see you later, yeah?”

“I miss you,” Caspar says, easy as anything.

Joe's chest squeezes in; for a split second, everything stops in him, and he's outside of himself. He can see how he could turn back, turn and get his arms around Caspar and just—just say it back. Be honest. The image of it, of them, is so strong it scares him. He pulls the door open, not looking at Caspar. He just needs to get some air.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, later.”

****

They're at a house party and Joe's got his camera out, swaying and giddy and out of control.

“Come on, Mikey,” he crows. “Get it down.”

Mikey's got one of those stupid sugary drinks with the umbrella—the kind that Joe secretly likes—because Jack ordered it for him as a joke. It's the kind of swank house party where there's a hired bar. Joe doesn't even know who owns this place, knows only that the drinks are good. There's a crush of anonymous bodies all around them and Mikey's smug face is multicoloured under the moving lights. Joe's drunk; doesn't remember exactly how many sheets to the wind he is, but it's a lot of sheets. It's a whole house full of sheets.

“Yeah, lad, get it,” Jack shouts, pumping his fist.

“We like to drink with Mikey, 'cause Mikey is our mate!” Joe chants. “And when we drink with Mikey, he gets it down in eight! Seven! Six!”

Mikey throws the umbrella at Conor, who's cackling into Jack's shoulder, and downs it, finishing just in time.

They all yell his name. Joe spins his camera around to get himself in the shot too and pitches back towards Mikey, trusting that he'll be caught. There are arms around him and Conor and Jack and Josh crowding into the shot too—everyone here is a slut for attention.

“Get off me,” Joe says. He pushes himself up only to lurch into Jack's side. Jack says something, but Joe can't hear it over the sounds of the others laughing. He makes a face into the camera, feeling pleasantly hazy. It's the kind of night where he's letting himself get fucked, even knowing it's going to be shit tomorrow. He needs an excuse to wreck some things.

“Where'd Caspar get to?” Conor asks. He's looking at Joe as he says it, and Joe shrugs, rolling his head against Jack's shoulder.

“I'm not his keeper,” he mutters.

“Think I saw him with some bird over in the corner,” Mikey says, pointing vaguely.

“He was vlogging earlier, wasn't he?” Conor says. “He usually doesn't do that if he's gonna pull.”

Caspar usually doesn't vlog at all, except for a couple casual videos for his second channel. Joe's seen other cameras out at this party, phones held up—doesn't know how many are other YouTubers and how many are just people snapchatting. His own camera in his hand feels heavy suddenly, like it's pulling his whole body down.

He gives it to Josh without turning it off, muttering something about getting a glass of water, and sinks into the crowd.

Faces flash by him, hooking his eye and dragging his gaze in circles—he keeps moving, surrounded and searching. Usually partying fills him up with buzzing excitement, makes him feel like he's on top of the world, but it's fading tonight. There's cameras in the corner of his eye, phones tilted up and mouths stretched wide in grins. He's not lonely. Caspar can't be right.

He finds Caspar by the stairs to the second floor, leaning next to a girl with red hair. She's taller than Joe and has long, gold nails; when Joe gets close, she's saying, “So, you live by yourself?”

“He doesn't,” says Joe, falling into Caspar's side. “He's got a roommate.”

Caspar catches him, one wide hand firm on Joe's waist; he smells good. Joe winds a hand around Caspar's neck, fingers hooking into the neck of Caspar's shirt.

“Not anymore,” says Caspar. He's still looking at the girl.

“Hey,” says Joe. He pulls on Caspar's shirt, making the edge of the fabric yank tight against Caspar's open throat. “Still roommates, just two places. That's what we told everyone, remember?”

Caspar looks down at him. Joe can feel his neck move when he speaks. “I remember.”

“Oh,” says the girl. “I know you.”

She looking at Joe, and he smiles obligingly before he realizes what she means.

“You're that guy from YouTube,” she says. “ThatcherJoe. And you're—” She blinks up at Caspar and laughs suddenly. “You're Caspar Lee! Oh my god, I knew I knew you from somewhere.”

She's looking at the two of them, her face glowing, and Joe can feel Caspar's fingers tightening on his waist. Joe blinks and her face is a camera, eyes shining bright like lenses, capturing every spot Joe and Caspar are touching, and suddenly Joe needs to not be touching him. He lurches backwards, stumbling. His hands aren't happy to leave Caspar's throat; the neck of his shirt stings a hot line across Joe's fingers, and Caspar is staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Sorry babe,” Joe says, giving the girl a hug for good measure. “Just gotta grab big man here for a second.”

He digs his elbow into Caspar's side, and when Caspar goes to push back automatically, Joe laughs, swings his arm over Caspar's shoulder again to turn it into a little wrestle, all good, laddy fun. He smiles at the girl over Caspar's head and drags Caspar past her.

“Cheers!” he says.

“I love your videos!” she calls.

Joe waves, pitching back into the crowd with Caspar in tow. Caspar shakes him off as soon as they're enveloped by people again—Joe loses sight of him for a second before Caspar looms in close and steadies Joe with one hand on his shoulder.

“What was that for?” he asks, practically yelling to be heard over the music. A flash goes off hot beside Joe, punctuated by the sound of laughter, and his head is spinning, everything moving except for Caspar's face above him.

“Too many cameras,” Joe says nonsensically. “Come on.”

They push their way through the crowd until they reach the stairs. The second floor is quieter, dim, groups of people spaced further apart, coloured lights hanging on strings from the ceiling. Joe keeps moving, scanning the doors vacantly, until Caspar pulls him to stop around a corner. He looks upset, his forehead all wrinkled up in its wi-fi signal, and Joe can't help but laugh.

“Joe,” says Caspar. “What is wrong with you?”

Joe pokes him in the forehead and Caspar bats his hand away.

“Couldn't you see I was trying to—”

“You said you weren't feeling it lately,” Joe says. “Earlier you said that.”

He's got his hand on Caspar's neck again, just resting against the side of it because Caspar's skin is warm and Joe always wants to feel other people against him when he's drunk. When Caspar swallows, Joe tries to chase his adam's apple with his thumb, pressing hard against Caspar's throat. Caspar makes a strange noise—Joe tears his eyes away from his own hand to see that Caspar's staring down at him with a look Joe thinks he's starting to recognize.

“You don't get to do that, Joe,” Caspar says.

“What?”

“If you can want the house and the girlfriend, I can want that stuff too, okay?”

“You said you weren't feeling it,” Joe repeats. “You told me you didn't want to be bringing loads of girls back.”

“I don't get you,” Caspar says. He sounds exhausted. “If I'm supposed to be one of your best mates, you should be fucking acting like it.”

“I am,” says Joe, curling forward into Caspar. He claps his other hand against the side of Caspar's face; Caspar flinches, and Joe pats him there again, softer. For a second, Caspar allows the touch, sinking down towards Joe, and then he's pushing backwards, and Joe has to grab his shoulders to keep him close.

“Get off,” Caspar is saying, low, and angry, and Joe's trying to laugh, trying to make it into a joke because that's what he knows how to do, but the sound of it goes ugly and strained when Caspar shoves him into the wall because apparently Caspar means it this time, really, really doesn't want Joe near him.

Caspar looks surprised once there's space between them, his face broken up into pieces of colour in the glow of the fairy lights hanging from the ceiling. He and Joe glance down the hallway together, looking to see if anyone had noticed them fighting, but it's empty, the voices of the party curiously distant. Joe's elbow hurts from slamming into the wall, but he doesn't touch it, can't give Caspar the satisfaction.

“Look,” says Caspar, clearly forcing his voice to be lighter. He's getting out his phone. “Why don't we do a snapchat or something? I don't want to be fighting—we should put up something with us together. We haven't in a while. I don't think I'm even in your vlog yet today, and you're always vlogging.”

He steps towards Joe and holds out his phone. Joe looks at it, and there's a roaring sound in his ears. Caspar was vlogging earlier, could be filming him secretly now, pranking him. He can't be sure, even if he's gotten away from his own camera. He needs to be sure.

“Joe?” Caspar says.

Joe fumbles for the doorknob to the door on the wall next to him, gets a fist in the front of Caspar's shirt, and pulls him into the darkened room.

Caspar reaches for the light instinctively, and Joe gets a glimpse of navy blue walls and a four poster bed before he slaps his hand over Caspar's and shuts the light off again. He yanks the door shut behind them and everything goes pitch black.

He can feel Caspar's hand under his on the light switch, tense. His knuckles are pressing hard into Caspar's chest, moving with every breath Caspar takes. He can hear Caspar breathing, hear both of them, heavy between their bodies. The world has narrowed down to touch and sound—Joe knows nothing beyond that.

No cameras can see them here. They can't even see each other, or themselves. It's not real. It's more real than any time they've ever looked at each other.

Caspar's breathing changes, like he's about to speak. Joe uncurls his hand from Caspar's shirt and slides it up to his neck again, presses down gently against his windpipe just to feel the give of it. Caspar freezes under the touch. The darkness makes Joe's head spin even more, unsteady on his feet, and Caspar feels so nice and solid under his hand. He hooks his fingers in the neck of Caspar's shirt and pulls it down, pulls Caspar towards him, leans up and buries his face in Caspar's shoulder. There's a thump—Caspar catching himself on the door. His hand shifts under Joe's on the wall, moving away from the light switch, and Joe follows his hand, keeping them pressed together.

Joe can feel Caspar's pulse racing in his throat where Joe's cheek is pushed up against it. He wants to tell Caspar he doesn't need to worry now, that they don't need to fight because Joe's not lonely and Caspar didn't really want that girl and they're safe now, but Joe's mouth feels like cotton wool and words can't seem to form. He opens up anyway, sucks a coin of Caspar's skin into his mouth because it's there.

Caspar makes a choked sound against the side of Joe's head. His skin tastes good, salt and alcohol, and Joe sucks harder, scrapes his teeth over it. He gets a hand up into Caspar's hair and grips hard—his arms are shaking, he doesn't know why they're shaking. There'll be no proof if it happens in the dark, off-camera.

“Joe,” Caspar breathes. He gives a half-laugh, unsteady. “I can't tell if you're messing with me, or—”

Joe slides his mouth up Caspar's neck, his whole body on edge. He closes his lips around the edge of Caspar's jaw, stubble pressing unfamiliar against his skin. He can feel Caspar's breath on his face now, hot and shaky over his closed eyes.

Caspar tries to speak again, and Joe shushes him, covers Caspar's mouth with his own so he can't say anything at all.

It's like being plunged underwater—everything goes thick and muffled in his head, and he can't feel the ground beneath his feet. Caspar gasps against his mouth and crowds in on him all at once, pressing him back into the door; Joe's head thumps against the wood and his lips smear sideways across Caspar's cheek. When Caspar lines their mouths up again, Joe's is already open, waiting for it, and it's real then, it's so real.

Everything happens too fast for Joe to keep track of. He's grasping at moments like he's grasping at Caspar's hair, at the back of his shirt, surging up into it, aching. Caspar's kissing him in hot stabs on his mouth, fast and nervous; he's sliding his hands over Joe's sides, rucking his shirt up and making the bare skin of his stomach press into Caspar's belt; he's kissing Joe deep and hard, fucking his mouth with his tongue like he's been wanting this forever, thinking about it as long as Joe has decidedly not been thinking about it. Joe feels like he's melting and charging up with electricity at the same time, jumping between long, liquid stretches, and frantic, biting minutes. He wants to climb up inside Caspar. He wants to ruin him so no one can film him again.

Caspar grabs Joe's right leg and pulls it away from the other, pushing his own thigh in between to grind up sharp and sudden against Joe's cock. Joe moans, surprised, into Caspar's mouth—he's so hot all over that he hadn't realized just how hard he is, but it's the most present thing in his head now. He's making a mess in his boxers, leaking so much over the pressure of Caspar's leg. Caspar shifts, lets Joe bite down on his lip, and Joe can feel what has to be Caspar's dick digging into his hip. Joe reaches down and grabs at it just to make sure, feeling out the shape of him through his jeans.

“Fuck,” Caspar hisses, and Joe shushes him again, fumbling with both hands at Caspar's belt. The others will be looking for them soon, vlogging cameras out, and they don't live together anymore—there's nowhere for them to go but here, and Joe's fingers are shaking with the urgency of it.

“I miss you,” Caspar says, because he never shuts up when Joe needs him to. “Do you even, do you even know—”

Joe gets Caspar's jeans open and jams his hand down the waistband of his pants, finding his prick swollen hot and hard and curling his fingers around it, squeezing to cut off Caspar's words. He shoves Caspar's jeans and pants down enough to pull Caspar's cock out properly, and then Joe can feel the head of it tapping against his stomach and he's pulling in a breath and pulling his hand up in a clumsy stroke, Caspar's fingers clenching into his sides.

He's never touched another man's cock before, not hard like this, and there's a nasty thrill lighting hot in his stomach at just how good it feels. Caspar pushes up into his grip, fucking his cock into Joe's fist, and they're not even kissing anymore, just panting wetly into each other's mouths, slack lips dragging carelessly. Caspar's cock is thicker than Joe's and so fucking hard—Joe can feel a fat vein throbbing against his palm as he jerks Caspar off, and all he can think of is girls on their knees for Caspar, feeling that weight in their mouths, in their cunts.

Caspar pops open Joe's jeans, shoves one hand inside the front and the other down the back, curving a hand around Joe's arse and pulling him close. There's a palm rubbing hard over the front of Joe's boxers and fingers prying into the crack of his arse, pulling him apart—his whole body clenches dizzily, and he's rocking backwards, trying to get Caspar's fingers somewhere he hadn't even thought about until this moment. Caspar swears again, squeezes his arse, and fishes Joe's cock out of his pants, bodily shifting him to get their dicks lined up and pressing against each other between them. Joe automatically opens his hand to get both of them in his grip, and then Caspar's hand is there over his, helping him pull them off together.

Joe's so drunk, so fucking drunk, floaty and perfect with Caspar all around him, their hands getting wet with how much precome he's dumping out, gliding faster over their cocks. He tips his face up against Caspar's, needy, and they kiss again, the kind of dirty shit he can't do with most girls. Caspar's pulling him in with the hand on Joe's arse, rocking them together like they're fucking, like Joe's being fucked—Caspar's fingers slide in the sweaty crease of Joe's arse, one knuckle pressing dry over Joe's arsehole, and Joe has to pull away from Caspar's mouth to muffle his yell in a bite on Caspar's neck.

“You were right,” Caspar says in Joe's ear, voice strained. “I don't want girls over, I want this, always wanted this, thought you left 'cause you didn't, but that's not it, is it?”

“Please,” Joe mumbles. He doesn't even really know what he's saying.

“You know how much you fuck me up?” Caspar says, and his hand's so tight around their cocks that it almost hurts as much as it feels blindingly good. “Prank me, mess with me, make me feel like I'm going fucking nuts.”

“Caspar,” Joe gasps.

“Yes,” Caspar says, and it almost sounds like he's pleading now. His dick is twitching hard against Joe's, like he's about to go off. Joe gets his free hand up around Caspar's throat and squeezes hard, his whole body shivering with the intensity of it all.

“Shut up,” Joe hisses. “You don't breathe unless I say.”

Caspar makes a thin, choked noise, and shudders hard—his dick flexes and he comes, hard, sticky pulses all over their hands, all over Joe's cock. He slams Joe back into the door hard enough that it rattles under their weight, pushing his neck into Joe's grip harder. Feeling him come in Joe's fist, pressed against Joe's cock, is like nothing Joe's ever felt. A wave of sickly heat shudders through him—he has a second of starburst bright panic, and then he's coming too, Caspar's throat in his palm, Caspar's come soaked all over his cock. It feels like it lasts forever, Joe shaking through it in Caspar's arms, his mind gone white and blank. His prick feels sore by the time the last drop of come is squeezed out by Caspar's hand. Caspar kisses his forehead. Joe pets at Caspar's neck. They stand there, leaning against each other, soaked and spent and fucked out.

Caspar drags his hand slowly out of the back of Joe's jeans and fumbles against the wall. The main light bursts on suddenly, a shock against Joe's eyes, and he can see it in stark colour suddenly: the sore, red mark he's made on Caspar's neck from his mouth and his fingers, the flat walls of the bedroom beyond his shoulder.

“Turn it off,” he says, yanking his hand out between them to flail for the light switch. God, he can feel how sticky his hand is, disgusting. “Off, get it—”

Caspar catches his hand, Joe's fingers cramped in his palm. Joe tries to pull away, but Caspar brings his hand to his face and presses the flat of his tongue to Joe's palm and Joe is weak against him all over again. He stares blankly at an All Time Low poster on the opposite wall and lets Caspar lick the come off his hand.

Caspar lets his hand go when he's done, sinking to his knees. Joe fists a hand in Caspar's hair instead of reaching for the light switch. When Caspar asks him to look at him, he does, watching as Caspar cleans Joe's soft, wet cock with his mouth. He looks worshipful. He looks right, and Joe doesn't turn the light off.

****

Joe wakes up in Caspar's bed with his vlogging camera on the night stand beside him. He's wearing Caspar's grey t-shirt and his own pants; his head aches. It's early afternoon, the sky a bright, peerless blue through the window. Caspar's lying beside him, pretending to sleep. Joe's done enough pranks on him when Caspar was really asleep to know when he's faking it.

There's footage on Joe's camera that he didn't take, swirling shots of the party, of the boys doing shots and dumb shit. Josh vlogged half the party after Joe gave him his camera. Most of it's unusable.

There's a shot of Caspar and Joe on the last clip on the camera, with their arms around each other's shoulders, looking rumpled, but nothing like they'd just gotten off with each other. The camera doesn't tell the complete truth—Joe's realizing that it never has.

“Joe's gonna stay at mine tonight,” Caspar says. “He's all sad 'cause he misses me.”

Joe watches himself roll his eyes, dig his fingers into the side of Caspar's neck.

“Thought you were on the pull tonight,” Conor says. “Weren't you chatting up some girl a while back?”

“Oh, he pulled the best-looking thing in the club,” Joe says. He pulls a ridiculous, hideous face. “The Suggster!”

They all laugh, guileless, because it's not out of the ordinary, any of it, the joking, or drunk Joe being all over his friends. Joe can see how Caspar is looking at him though, with the kind of softness Joe had taken for granted back when Caspar was always just one room away. When the clip cuts out, Joe rewinds it and watches that part again, pausing it on Caspar's face in the middle of Josh panning the camera.

He looks over at Caspar lying beside him, and Caspar's eyes are open. Joe desperately wants to leave, or make a joke, even though he knows now is the last time for one. He doesn't do either. Maybe that's what growing up is, more than a house, more than a girlfriend.

“I've gotta film a sign off for this vlog,” he says quietly. “Can I do that here?”

Caspar takes Joe's hand and presses a kiss to the center of his palm. He nods.

“I miss you,” Joe says finally.

“You don't have to,” says Caspar. “Not anymore.”

“No one lives with their boyfriend or girlfriend right when they first start dating anyway, right?” Joe says. “That's something people usually work up to.”

Caspar smiles, slow and full, and the unaddressed emptiness in Joe's chest starts to shrink.

He lies back down and Caspar rolls away from him to make sure he won't be in the shot. Joe records his outro—he can feel Caspar watching him, but all the camera sees is Joe alone on an anonymous bed. When he's done, Caspar moves back towards him and Joe puts two fingers on the side of his neck, feeling out the steadiness of his pulse. They stay there like that for a very long time.


End file.
